THE PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT REPORT IS FOURFOLD--(1) TO PROVE THE NEED FOR SCHOLASTIC APTITUDE TESTS, (2) TO SHOW THE NEED FOR A COMMON TEST FOR A LARGE GEOGRAPHICAL AREA, (3) TO SHOW THAT SCHOLASTIC APTITUDE TESTS ARE PREFERABLE TO TESTS OF INTELLIGENCE, AND (4) TO DISCUSS THE EXPECTED OUTCOMES WITH THE ADMINISTRATION OF SUCH TESTS. THE REPORT IS…

A study was conducted to determine which subtests of the Gates Reading Readiness Tests have greatest predictive efficiency. An experiment to assess the effect of training in reading readiness on 222 kindergarten children (107 girls and 115 boys) provided the data for the research. The experimental group received 2 months' reading readiness…

The paper discusses some important distinctions between linguistic competence and linguistic performance. It is the authors' contention that the distinction between the two must be maintained in experimental linguistics, or else inadequate models result. Three experiments are described. In the first, subjects pronounce nonsense words and the…

Two papers, presented at the 1968 American Personnel and Guidance Association Meeting, indicated that pre-enrollment counseling programs at urban state universities have thus far been unable to reach the many entering students who are not emotionally committed to college achievement. Accompanying flow charts showed limited results with three…

A sample of students was followed from high school senior status to their educational or vocational situation one year later. The data were taken mainly from 5,508 completed questionnaires. Most of the students were attending 4-year or junior colleges, while the rest were in trade, business, or nursing schools, were working full-time, or were in…

Described is a program to identify potential learning problems and learning styles in 131 kindergarten children through the assessment of global intelligence, gross and fine motor skills, visual perception skills, auditory perception skills, speech and language development, social skills, alphabet recognition, and number concepts. Standardized…

This paper describes three classification criterion tasks and the rationale for their selection. A set of parameters is defined and then used to describe the item format for the test. The test format and content domain are presented and discussed. Sample testing directions and materials are appended. (Author)

A general purpose computer program for the calculation of a matrix of tetrachoric correlations is described. This program was developed for use in adaptive (and other) testing research for examining the unidimensionality assumption in latent trait theory, in conjunction with available factor analysis programs. Several other potential applications,…

Step-by-step instructions for the school representative responsible for Educational Quality Assessment in Pennsylvania are provided. The representative, who is expected to attend Quality Assessment Workshops, is given information about how to schedule the administration of the questionnaire, how to collect district and school data, and how to…

The relationship between individualized instruction (II) and letter grades is an issue of considerable debate. Ultimately, II and the letter grade system are incompatible. Grading has been a traditional form for ranking or comparing students with respect to performance criteria. The scale typically has been A to F, whereas with individualized…

A study was conducted to measure the facility of kindergarten pupils in using optically scannable response sheets. Three types of response boxes were tested. It was concluded that pupils are able to handle a ten-item two-sided test with minimal practice and directions. (Author)

A basic issue in second language (L2) teaching is whether the learner's first language (L1) should be used in the process. Differing views of language teaching authorities and various experiments carried out to test the use of translation in foreign language teaching are presented briefly. The author's experiment, involving teaching two groups of…

The historical, political and economic climate in the mid-1960's was ripe for a head-on collision between two conflicting ideologies. On the one hand, there was President Johnson's War on Poverty. The Head Start summer programs were begun in late 1964 as the archetype of the hope to improve the lives of the poor. On the other hand, was the…

General examinations of the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) were administered in Fall 1968 to 333 students who had entered the University of Washington as freshmen in Fall 1966 and had completed 80-100 credits by Spring 1968. The tests were conducted to measure proficiency in lower division studies, particularly in the areas of natural…

To determine how well certain factors would predict academic achievement, 97 freshmen and 48 sophomores, all full-time 1968-69 students, were tested. The factors were (1) high school GPA, (2) American College Testing (ACT) English test, (3) ACT math portion, (4) ACT social studies portion, (5) ACT natural science portion. The criterion of…